The Rockets’ Biggest Challenge in the Playoffs? Their Own Defense

"What if mid-range jump shots didn't exist?" is a pretty good elevator pitch for the 2016-17 Houston Rockets, a team that will be remembered for some of the most delightfully exorbitant behavior (on the court) in NBA history.

The season is not yet over, and Houston already has attempted, and made, more threes than any other team in NBA history. Every high-volume contributor—James Harden, Ryan Anderson, Eric Gordon, Trevor Ariza, Patrick Beverley—flings darts from distance at an above-average rate.

Nearly half of the team's field-goal attempts—46.0 percent—come from behind the three-point line, the highest rate in the league and 6.5 percentage points higher than the second-place Cleveland Cavaliers. That same gap separates the second-place Cavaliers from the ninth-place Los Angeles Clippers, and the ninth-place Clippers from the 26th-place Indiana Pacers. The result is Houston's highest win percentage since 1997, the third-highest net rating in the league, and a three seed in the West.

The Rockets didn't kickstart a basketball revolution, but they're the tip of a spear that has shown no signs of deceleration. We watch this team because they score. It's their largest draw and most entertaining characteristic. But while Houston has an MVP-caliber playmaker in Harden and an offensive genius on the sidelines in coach Mike D'Antoni, things on the other end of the court are less virtuosic. And so, heading into the postseason, it's fair to ask: Is the Rockets' gluttonous range shooting enough, by itself, to win it all, or will Houston's defensive weaknesses haunt them in the playoffs?

Houston hopes to make that question irrelevant.

"Historically, some of the best coaches and the best teams had top defenses, [but] it's actually hard to disentangle cause and effect between the style of play that those teams play in, their personnel, and how likely they were to win the title," Rockets general manager Daryl Morey told VICE Sports. "The most important thing is, are you creating a margin enough to be able to win the title? And historically you have to be somewhere around where we're at, which is like a six or more net margin. Obviously the higher the better, and Golden State has one of the best margins of all time. But we're right there with the Spurs. Us, Golden State, and the Spurs have the best indicators to be champions this year. We just all happen to be in the same conference."

(Another historical comparison for these Rockets might be the 2014-15 Los Angeles Clippers, a team that finished first in offense and 15th in defense with a +6.9 net rating, and then flamed out in the second round after an infamous seven-game series against none other than Houston.)

Houston made major moves to maximize Harden's offensive repertoire last off-season: they hired D'Antoni as head coach, let three-time Defensive Player of the Year Dwight Howard walk in free agency, used most of their cap space on Anderson and Gordon, and signed Nene as their backup center. None of these moves were exactly shoring up a defense that ranked 21st in the league last season.

"I think most people thought [we'd rank] 30th, to be honest," Morey half-joked.

The Rockets never did fall to dead last in defensive rating this season, and they currently rank 16th, but the only thing consistent about their play on that end has been how inconsistent it's been.

Relative to the other 29 teams in each month, Houston ranked 27th in defensive rating for November, sixth in December, 15th in January, tenth in February, and 20th in March.

Dive deeper into the numbers, and the Rockets are still all over the place. No team allows a higher percentage of shots in the restricted area. In clutch situations—when the scoring margin is within five points with fewer than five minutes to go—Houston has the worst defensive rating among playoff teams (22nd in the league) and, of even more concern, a negative net rating. (They are never worse, however, than when they're up by 11-15 points.)

They rank 21st in defensive rebound rate on the year, and have dropped to 28th since the All-Star break.

"Sometimes we want to run before we get the ball," Rockets assistant coach and defensive coordinator Jeff Bzdelik told VICE Sports. "And so it's always a constant challenge. The defensive end is not the sexy part of the game."

The Rockets don't have the best habits. They lose focus, are frequent victims of miscommunication, and don't make help rotations until it's too late. Here are just a couple examples from a recent game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

Both actions are high pick-and-rolls with Russell Westbrook and Steven Adams, preluded by Alex Abrines faking like he's going to pick Ariza before he meanders to the top of the key. On the first play, Ariza and Nene both stay high and let Adams roll free to the basket. Harden doesn't pinch in far enough and the result is an easy dunk.

Houston adjusts on the very next play, but Williams gets caught in no-man's land between Adams and Abrines. Splash.

"We've been more of a 'stops on demand' team than a 'consistent defensive' team," Bzdelik said. "We can't just think, 'Hey, we've gotta really dig in here'; we've gotta have that mentality, that mindset, at all times. That's what the great defensive teams do. Defense, for the most part, is a will and want at all times from all five guys, doing what they're supposed to be doing in a cohesive way."

But for all their problems, Houston holds opponents to below-average shooting percentages in every area outside the paint (from the corners, above the break, and in the mid-range). They're scrappy and aggressive; only one other team draws more charges and recovers more loose balls per 48 minutes, and the Rockets also rank second in points off turnovers. These qualities (plus a bit of luck) have prevented Houston's defense from deteriorating the way most people expected.

In basketball, as in many sports, offense and defense are often discussed and measured as separate units, but in reality their relationship is much more intertwined, a constant push and pull. It shouldn't surprise anyone that a team that loves to run and launch threes early in the shot clock also struggles with transition defense—which, as it happens, might be Houston's largest concern heading into the postseason.

The Rockets allow 1.131 points per possession in transition, per Synergy Sports, which is 22nd in the league. Their defense ranks seventh after they make a shot and get to set up in the half-court, but when they have to retreat back after the opponent grabs a defensive rebound, they plummet down to 25th. According to Inpredictable, only the Cleveland Cavaliers make a steeper drop between those two situations.

"In transition, a one-second delay when you're getting back yields at least a ten-foot separation to your opponent," Bzdelik said. "So if you're not getting back on the raise and your first three steps aren't like you're shot out of a cannon, and you're not communicating and you're running back mindlessly or you're buddy running—that means you're running to the guy that you're guarding—then your defense, it's not gonna be good, and you're gonna get scored upon or you're gonna foul. Because 90 percent of fouls are defensive mistakes."

Watch Ariza on the play below.

Transition defense is a nightly concern.

When they're locked in, the Rockets can guard as well as any team in the league. Nobody's stingier after a timeout, per Synergy Sports, and even units seemingly staffed with sieves get the job done. Houston defends at a top-five rate when Harden, Gordon, and Anderson share the floor.

"I would say all three are a little bit misunderstood as defenders," Morey said. "I'm not trying to pass them off as first-team All-Defense, but all three of them have more strength than people realize and allow us to perform at [a top-five] level."

Harden is one of basketball's more polarizing two-way figures. Once you cement a reputation for shaky defense, it's almost impossible to convince people otherwise, and in recent years, Harden was a Vine megastar for all the wrong reasons. He's still lackadaisical off the ball and prone to get beat off the dribble every now and then, but it's unfair to label him as "bad" and call it a day.

Harden's core strength is his prowess as a defensive rebounder. That, in turn, allows the Rockets to throw him on a big whenever they go small, and he has spent lengthy stints guarding guys like Nikola Jokic, Anthony Davis, and Blake Griffin without getting torched. Harden forces a higher percentage of turnovers defending post-ups than anyone else (minimum 70 possessions) in the league, and since the All-Star break he has as many deflections as Draymond Green.

Spending time on larger players who can't bully him on the block also allows him to rest more than if he were running around screens or hanging out with opposing guards on the perimeter. According to NBA.com, Harden's average speed on defense is 3.3 miles per hour, making him the slowest player in the league on that side of the ball (minimum 25 minutes per game). The Rockets are long, smart, and athletic enough to send help at the right time, too:

But even if Harden were the worst defender in the world, the Rockets would be crazy to reduce his minutes in the playoffs—not when he's averaging 29.2 points and 11.2 assists per game. Benching him wouldn't be logical. The same can't be said for Anderson and Williams, a pair of one-dimensional sparks who are critical to Houston's offensive success but liabilities on the other end.

Let's start with Anderson, who's fine defending physical bigs but an open sore in space. In the playoffs, opponents will be more than happy to go small and stick a wing on him. Not only does this simplify the difficult task of defending an Anderson-Harden pick-and-roll (just switch it); it also forces Anderson to guard players who are faster and more athletic.

"He struggles against guys who're quicker and a little bit smaller against him," Morey said.

Here he is out on Solomon Hill. The New Orleans Pelicans forward easily drives middle even though Anderson is positioned to guide him toward the sideline. Beverley has to slide off Tim Frazier to help and the Rockets forfeit a wide-open three ball:

But the Rockets have shown they can defend with Anderson on the floor. Among all five-man units that have logged at least 100 minutes since the All-Star break, Houston's usual starting five (Beverley, Harden, Ariza, Anderson, and Clint Capela) have the second-best defensive rating.

And then there's Williams, who might actually be the worst defender at his position right now. The Rockets allow 108.2 points per 100 possessions when he's on the floor and 104.2 when he sits. Teams will mercilessly attack him in the playoffs by using his man to set a flurry of ball screens, forcing uncomfortable switches and strains that are felt elsewhere.

In a recent loss against the Portland Trail Blazers, Williams is guarding Allen Crabbe as he sprints to set a pick for Damian Lillard; the resulting breakdowns lead to a pair of high-percentage threes.

Whether it's a poor closeout or the decision to switch without letting a teammate know, Williams' frequent errors make it hard to imagine him on the floor down the stretch of a tight game in the postseason.

That said, however, he did close a recent contest against the Warriors, and having him in the game creates beneficial chances when Houston has the ball. It's not a given that Houston's rotation will change too dramatically come playoff time when the team has been dealing with Anderson and Williams' flaws all season.

"That's a question for Coach Mike, but we're gonna be who we are," Bzdelik said.

And that's fair. For every toxic mistake, there's Ariza swooping into a passing lane and going the other way for a dunk. Or Gordon cutting off his man's first step with his rangy lateral quickness. Or Beverley turning into a poisonous gnat and making everyone on the other team want to crawl in a hole and die. Or Capela helping out on a mismatch and then flying back to the three-point line with an agility few players his size have ever shown.

The Rockets have good defensive players and when things click their ceiling rises to that of a dangerous title contender. There will be nights in the playoffs when shots aren't falling; key moments where the opponent's defense is barbed wire and the only way to persevere is with a stop on the other end. Those moments will be the Rockets' biggest test.

As it stands, Houston's path to the Finals is a gauntlet: first up will be Russell Westbrook and the Thunder, followed by Kawhi Leonard and the Spurs, and then the seemingly unbeatable Warriors.

And that's just to qualify for the Finals, where it's likely the defending champion Cleveland Cavaliers will be waiting. This is conquering Mt. Everest in a T-shirt and Jordans. But if the Rockets tighten things in transition, rebound better, and don't treat the three-point line like a Get Out of Jail Free card, they just might pull off what looks now to be impossible.

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